Page 44 of Fearless

When she could stand the silence no longer, she said, “Did you tell that prospect over there that ‘not a hair’ on my head was to be touched?”

“I think I said, ‘not a hair on herfuckinghead, or so help me God, I’ll make you floss your teeth with your own entrails.’ ”

“Ah. That sounds more like you.”

He chuckled. “I hope he was scared. Was he? Did he get those little drops of sweat on his face?” He gestured to his own temples.

Ava couldn’t suppress a small smile. “He was properly terrified, don’t worry.”

“Good.”

The silence fell over them again, like a ship sail that had settled after an errant gust.

Then Mercy said, “I don’t wanna hash things out. I won’t do it, actually. Not possible.” His tone brooked no arguments.

“No,” she agreed. “That would be bad.” There was too much hurt and confusion there – on her part – for her to express how much she hated and still loved him with any coherence. A part of her wanted to break it all open and scream at him. Another part of her wanted to throttle him for dismissing the past. And still another part was grateful they’d never have to actually say the words out loud.

“But,” he continued, “I don’t want it to be weird – us both being back home like this.”

Ava bit down hard on the end of her tongue. “Me neither,” she finally said. It was all she could do not to glance over at him, him with his maddening calm and that almost-smile.

“Maybe we can be friends,” he said.

“Do friends shove their tongues down each other’s throats at club parties?”

He shrugged. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Oh…” She started to get to her feet.

Only to be tugged back down, one of his huge hands curled around her elbow. “Don’t walk away all pissed at me. That’s what we’re trying to avoid.”

It would never cease to amaze her – his gift for rationality. He had a bad habit of being the most violent and the most logical man in the club.

She sat back down hard, scowling. “Mercy…” Saying his name aloud, under the portico like this, like old times, burned her tongue. Whatever she’d been about to say left her brain. “Why’d you come back?” she asked softly. “Whyreally? Because right now” – her voice dropped to a near-whisper – “it feels like you’re here just because it’s fun to harass me.”

“It is fun.” He chuckled, then sobered. “But I’m here because the president of the mother chapter asked me to be here. This is about the club, Ava, and nothing else. Maybe I was wrong to think you could see that.”

She whipped around so she could see his face, the maddening calm and resignation of his expression as he gave her a facial shrug that challenged her to prove him right and throw a tantrum.

Slowly, her movements tight and precise, she stood and glanced down at him. She didn’t try to disguise the hurt in her voice. “What happened to you?” she asked. “There used to be a speck of kindness in you.” Throwing his own words back at him, she said, “Maybe I was wrong to think that was ever genuine,” and walked to the clubhouse with a straight spine and lifted head.

Once she was inside, she sank down on a chair in the empty common room, her pulse pounding in her temples, her breath choppy. The room tilted around her and she remembered that she hadn’t eaten anything. Her stomach clenched and she remembered that she was only twenty-two and nothing had changed. Nothing at all.

She leaned forward and put her head between her knees to stop the onslaught of faint. As she closed her eyes against the black curtains of consciousness, the past rushed to meet her. It flooded her mind, loosed the memories, buried her in the old heartbreak.

A speck of kindness…It had been so much more than that. It had been everything.

Eleven

Five Years Ago

“Man, what’s this Heathcliff guy’s problem?”

Ava glanced up from the tree she was doodling in the margin of her notes. “He’s tortured. Because he loves Catherine and he can’t have her. He hates her for toying with him, and for leaving him behind. And he hates himself for being the orphan that he is, and not being good enough for her.”

Across the picnic table, the very blonde and very blue-eyed star quarterback of Knoxville High, Carter Michaels, blinked at her, his pencil held suspended over his notebook of discussion questions. “That’s…a lot of drama for one guy.”

“Heathcliff’s a dramatic dude,” Ava agreed. “What’s your next question on the list?”

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